Pats crush Chargers: It won't keep people from associating "Patriots" with "Cheaters," but it also won't keep people from agreeing that these Pats are not just the team to beat this season, but are already sizing up as the best of the Pats teams of the last decade.

Let's call this what it was -- a "Statement" game: Crap on us all you want, America, we're going to obliterate the NFL's next-best team to prove just how good – how tough – we are.

Effectively, the Pats have turned into the old Madden-esque Raiders or Johnson's Cowboys, where the polite wave in the style of "America's Team" has been replaced by the middle finger of "We don't care what you think." (Ironically, it makes them more – not less – likeable.)

Browns edge Bengals in barnburner: If you knew in advance that the Bengals were going to score 45 points against the Browns, I guarantee they would have been your "suicide" eliminator pool LOCK of the season. Too bad we all underestimated Derek Anderson. Based on the rest of the afternoon's results, it's like these two teams sucked up all of the fantasy production from the rest of the QBs, WRs and RBs out there.

Speaking of fantasy, my Stud of the Week is DeShawn Wynn (and not just because I spent the week in Gainesville). His 2 TDs sets Wynn up as a classic TD stealer (especially considering his intrasquad competition is a fellow rookie).

My Fantasy Dud of the Week is Steven Jackson, the consensus No. 2 overall fantasy pick has been a complete waste, outperformed by the likes of... well, DeShawn Wynn.

Schaub Mania: If you had to pick an NFL MVP after two weeks, I think Schaub (of the 2-0 Texans) would be the choice. He silences the haters. He makes Falcons fans weep. He is for real. And the Texans are 2-0 for the first time in franchise history.

NFL Milestones: Brett Favre is now the winningest QB in NFL history. More importantly, he won on this most recent Sunday.

Adrian Peterson Memorial Weekly Rookie of the Year Award: Amobi Okoye. The youngest player in the NFL is also apparently one of its most talented. He recorded two sacks and a forced fumble yesterday. Okoye is what Mario Williams was supposed to be last year.

Who had the Saints at 0-2?

Who had the 49ers at 2-0?

MNF: Redskins-Eagles. Philly needs a win, badly. Expect Jaworski to be on fire for his old team.

Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft don't care about the haters: There's no other reason they'd time the leak of the news that Belichick is signed through 2013. That's more than enough time for him to devise new ways to cheat to win. (Don't worry: I'm already getting tired of associating "cheater" with "Belichick" every time his name comes up.)

Meanwhile, speaking of Belicheat: The NFL wants anything associated with the cheating in question. Yeah, good luck with the Pats complying on that. Presumably, the shredders and incinerators and dumpsters over at the Pats facility are working overtime tonight.

(Anyone else catch Roger Goodell doing his interview with Costas? He wasn't as deft as David Stern, but he stuck to his message point, the same one the league has used for years: Parity rules... or: The rules have to be the same for everyone.)

College Football Top 25: I think merely three games into the new season, we've got a consensus about who the reasonable contenders are: USC (as long as they beat Cal); Oklahoma (as long as they beat Texas); the LSU-Florida winner of the SEC Championship Game; and the West Virginia-Rutgers winner. No offense to the rest, but there's going to be a lot more attrition. CFB will be lucky to have one team go unbeaten, let alone two.

(You didn't have to see Tim Tebow live and in the stadium like I did to realize that my preseason prediction he'd be in the Heisman Top 5 isn't THAT crazy. Number 2, as of this week? Perhaps. But again: Not THAT crazy.)

Clemens vs. Fenway, the Finale: Impressively, it was Derek Jeter who stole the show with a 3-run HR in the 8th.

Your ballot at first glance seems good and reasonable. Not sure what USF did this week to convince you to move them up 5, though, since they had their only win essentially taken away from them by MSU. As long as USF takes care of UNC this weekend, then the following week's USF-WVU game is the real referendum on USF as a legitimate football team.

I don't particularly like Wisconsin in the top 10, but it's hard to know who to put in instead. Oregon? Basically, outside of the "contenders" you mention (and maybe Penn State) there are about 20 teams that feel like #15-#19.

if San Diego is supposed to be one of the top 3 or 4 teams in the NFL then how much better are the Patriots then everyone else. At times last night that look like a the Patriots were playing San Diego State not the San Diego Chargers.

No mention of Devin Hester? He is awesome. 1 TD, 1 almost TD, and another called back on a penalty that would've had no impact on the play. This kid and the defense are all Chicago's got. Rexy is awful.

I know you hate Michigan and all, but if the Heisman is supposed to go to the best player (it isn't an MVP trophy) than it is kind of hard to ignore what Mike Hart is doing right now. Has more rushing yards than anyone else in college.

If anybody watched "FOX NFL SUNDAY" aka the pregame show, they would finally hear the opinions voiced that what the Pats did was the norm not the exception.

Jimmy Johnson said a bunch of things that I didn't expect. I thought he would say the whole "everybody does it so it's not big deal" thing, but I wasn't expecting the rest.

Jimmy said that he did everything that the Pats did when he coached both in college and in the NFL. Then Barry Switzer said that he did everything also except for a couple years with the Cowboys.

I thought it was over until Jimmy said that he had an intern whose only job was to go to the opposing teams' box after the game and look through the trash for gameplans, plays, etc. to use in the future.

It just proves my point from last week:Everybody has been doing this stuff forever. It just so happens that it was Week 1 of the "Goodell Era" and he wanted to make some big statement. The fact that the person sitting at home might not have known this was the case doesn't change anything.

My favorite part was when Jimmy and Howie went off on players (LdT) who said that their teams don't cheat. They said something to the effect of "If they were doing it, and they are, they wouldn't tell you, you moron!"

Then Jimmy also said that the head caoches who said their teams are clean don't really know either because he knew of at least a couple of times when either O or D coordinators had been doing this kind of stuff without the permission or even knowledge of the head coach.

I don't know who said it this morning, it was either Mike and Mike or Dennis and Callhan but they made a great analogy. The Patriots are a big grizzly bear and what Mangini did was walk up to the Bear and poke it in the eye with a stick which is a stupid thing to do

GuyInTheCorner said... If anybody watched "FOX NFL SUNDAY" aka the pregame show, they would finally hear the opinions voiced that what the Pats did was the norm not the exception.

Jimmy Johnson said a bunch of things that I didn't expect. I thought he would say the whole "everybody does it so it's not big deal" thing, but I wasn't expecting the rest.

Jimmy said that he did everything that the Pats did when he coached both in college and in the NFL. Then Barry Switzer said that he did everything also except for a couple years with the Cowboys.

I thought it was over until Jimmy said that he had an intern whose only job was to go to the opposing teams' box after the game and look through the trash for gameplans, plays, etc. to use in the future.

It just proves my point from last week:Everybody has been doing this stuff forever. It just so happens that it was Week 1 of the "Goodell Era" and he wanted to make some big statement. The fact that the person sitting at home might not have known this was the case doesn't change anything.

The Patriots broke a league rule. But it's a stupid rule. What if I went to a game as a fan with a video camera and taped the Jets' signals. Would I not be allowed to sell said game tape to the Patriots? It's legal to write down what you see, just illegal to tape it?! Never mind "everyone does it", I think everyone SHOULD do it.

Maybe coaches can hire the Navajo windtalkers, if they want unbreakable signals for their squads?

The NFL markets itself as this perfect combination of brains and brawn, and with an outright war analogy. Well then all's fair....

hey shanoff, way to hate on the Big 10 again. After predicting Ohio State would lose to Washington, you don't even mention the game that OSU dominated. Even being behind in the first half, they outplayed UW and controlled the game. Way to skate past that one.

Did you just say the Patriots are MORE likeable? I honestly can't think of a less likeable team in sports, not just the NFL.. maybe / probably the Red Sox.. ? Maybe it is just a Boston thing but damn am I tired of their teams and their fanbase.

I guess with that said.. nothing was more enjoyable to watch yesterday then Big Papi popping up in the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded down by 1. Those fans were soooo sure he was going to crush the Yankees hopes of a win and they all got to leave disappointed.. sweet!

Washington was owned...media and fans fail to realize that the buckeyes never look "great" in the first few games of the season because we always play inferior teams and call very conservative game...he uses them more as practices than anything.

Tress gets the team ready to play the good teams and hostile environments usually not a problem (except for @Penn State 2 yrs ago)

combine with ho hum offense against akron and YSU and completely overlooking the buckeyes d would cause for the "upset alert" for tOSU...well the buckeyes held washington to 1 td before garbage time and the d dominated all game.

Can we all just give LdT a massive Dud for shooting his mouth off before playing the Pats, talking about stuff he knew nothing about, and then the general suckitude that has been him and his team for the first two weeks.

Possible "Tanking" situation coming up!Angels vs Mariners at the end of the week. Wouldn't the Angels rather tank the series in hopes of helping the Mariners sneak into the WC spot. I think it's in their best interest to keep a much more talented Yankees out of the playoffs at all cost. Not to mention the travel advantages of having another West Coast team playing in October.

I always thought NFL signals were more of a way to communicate over crowd volume than a matter of secrecy. Just run the plays in to the huddle with a sub like High School.

A huge Nelson "HA!HA!" to everyone that picked Cincy in their eliminator pool.I had a GREAT football weekend:Friday night, my alma mater spanked a team ranked higher than them in the state poll, Saturday the Buckeyes rolled, and Sunday was like being at the circus watching those Browns and Bengals score all day. The Browns still need to play some defense if they want to win more games.

I really thought SD was going to give the Pats a game. My husband and I watched the two episodes of "Weeds" that we had missed instead.

Freaky J: Thank you for mentioning my alma mater, Temple, getting so screwed this weekend! I was livid after watching the game, and couldn't believe how arrogant the refs were making that call. Honestly, if this were Notre Dame, the whole country would be up-in-arms over the call, but since it's only Temple and they suck and no one cares, nobody has even mentioned it.

I saw something that was interesting on Sportscenter on Saturday night.

In the Virginia/UNC game they Cavs kicked a FG at the end to extend their lead or something like that. The ball went about 3 feet over the crossbar all the way on the left. The ball almost hit the ref on that side of the upright so he kind of ducked out of the way. The ref on the other side was distracted by the movement of the first ref and forgot to look at if the ball went over the crossbar.

They both waved the FG no good. This confused the living crap out of Virginia. They were looking around at eachother with this look that said "didn't that go through? i'm confused. it looked good. what's going on?"

The Virginia coach threw the red flag and the head ref didn't actually know if it was reviewable. They did review it and overturned it and those 3 points came up big down the road.

They said on SC that it was the first time a field goal has ever bin challenged and not surprisingly so.

The Pats cheated in blatant/brazen violation of a recent memo. They got caught. They got punished. The haters had their laugh. The Chargers had their laugh. Roger Goodell is still mad with power. The Patriots are still a damn good football team. The Chargers aren't laughing anymore.

Yankees Red Sox game was a great regular season game. Clemens and Schilling combined for more wins than any other starting duo in history and both pitched great. Difference was Torre pulled Clemens in time, Francona left Schilling in just a little too long.

It came down to a one run game with bases loaded and 2 out and the best clutch hitter in baseball, Ortiz, at bat against Rivera. One of those games where you had no idea what was going to happen until the very last pitch.

I said 2 months ago, the Yanks won't catch the Red Sox and I still don't think they can. I do think the Yanks will stay ahead of Detroit but 2.5 games with 13 to go is nothing definite.

What a good weekend for me to be a sports fan. My gators wiped their ass with Tennessee which always puts a smile in my face. Then the Bucs played as good as I have seen them since their Super Bowl victory. To top it off the rays won on Sat and Sun. I slept very well last night.

I wouldn't be so sure the FL-LSU loser is out of things if they would win a rematch in the SEC Championship Game. Just sayin.

By the way, what about an undefeated BC team? Or an undefeated team from the Big Ten? How would they fare against a one-loss Floria or one-loss LSU team? Way too early to speculate, but it is still fun.

@ Matt:I was at OSU @ UW. The Buckeyes did NOT dominate that game! They are a better team, but UW's D outplayed OSU's the entire first half. I'm excited for the Jake Locker era, but he is not a very good passer right now; he was missing a lot of open/hittable receivers.

UW dropped 2 "sure" INTs in the first half that could have put more points on the board. The game would have gone to the wire if not for the fumble on the kickoff - it was a 3-point game when that happened.

OSU can beat a mid-Pac-10 team, but against USC/CAL/ORE they'd lose by 13+.

Big NFL dud goes to Justin McCarians. He didn't just drop a TD that would have tied the game with less than 2 minutes to go. He managed to tip a bal that was catchable (though not perfectly thrown) into the hands of Ray Lewis to end the game.

To recap, 2 dropped passes, one wide open, one tipped into the arms of the opposing team.

Jet fans have a new player to cheer upon injury (I don't think that's right... I'm just saying, if he gets cut today, I won't be upset)

Kellen Clemens looked good in the 4th Quarter. Now the Jets are mired in the age-old question, is it better to play a solid but not great veteran or a young QB who can be great??

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DanShanoff.com is a sports-blog spin-off of my long-time ESPN.com column, "The Daily Quickie." Anchored by an early-morning post of must-know topics, the blog is updated frequently throughout the day with new posts and user comments.